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The Me Speech Movement

Your thought for the day, from our Commentary columnist Curt Hopkins:
“No, I don’t have limits, not in the sense that I believe government should step to end speech, regardless of the topic. No, I really do believe anyone should be able to say anything about Mohammad they wish—and yes, against Jesus, or Moses, or America, even against apple pie—without being arrested, imprisoned, tortured or killed by, or with the connivance of, a government.”

The cheerleading surrounding the transformative power of the new communications technologies, or “Web 2.0,” is masking an unacknowledged reality: The majority of men and women using them wish for free speech to extend only as far as themselves and no further. Blogging, podcasting, file sharing: all of it, they believe, should be in service to their specific ideologies and sensibilities and should be denied to others. Despite the rosy glow of the possibilities of the new technology, the same old countervailing forces are at work. In fact, the trend is against individual liberties. Governments and their supporters worldwide describe free speech as a right when it pertains to their supporters and no right whatsoever when the speaker has an opinion counter to the government’s or to the “sensitivities of a community.”